Valheim Cooking: Pork and Turnip Stew

Valheim is a “A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture”. It’s developed by Iron Gate and published by Coffee Stain and it’s technically still in early access on Steam even though it’s been out since February of 2021.

You can get it for $20, U.S. and the company publishes regular updates and occasional new biomes for free. For that $20, you will be flown into a procedurally generated landscape and dropped into a ring of stones with nothing but a loin cloth. Hugin will squawk some basic instructions and from that point on, it’s all about surviving, exploring, building, exploring, fighting through everything that’s trying to kill you, exploring some more while uncovering more and more elements in the game as you discover ingredients for building and food. 

This game is a brilliant dopamin generator and reignites the discussion of whether or not video games can be classified as art. Short answer: Yes, they can.  I would challenge anyone who disagrees to build your first boat in Valheim and sail into the unknown and wait for a sunset. The polygon count is not high in this game. It’s not Minecraft low but it’s not GTA6. But the eyekicks almost never stop and the immersion is solid.

So, yes, I’m a fan. It’s a perfect storm of challenge, art and subject matter which includes my long fascination with Viking Age Nordic culture. Skyrim had my attention for the same reason but Skyrim is Elder Scrolls with some viking design elements whereas Valheim is unapologetically Viking inspired. 

Note that I said “inspired”. This game does not in any way or at any point claim to be a history accurate, period appropriate vision of the early European middle ages. It’s a fantastical vision of a new world with nordic aesthetics and a very loose interpretation of the lore but it is very much a fantasy and makes no apologies for it.

And I’m here for it. History is fascinating. Recreating history is exhausting. 

However, most of the recipes and ingredients in Valheim have a real world analog as far as the food that you can find or make which is used to restore health and stamina. The more I played with my friends on a dedicated server, the more I became curious about some of the recipes. 

The way food works in the game involves finding ingredients and eventually combining ingredients to make better, more effective food. You can pick up raspberries and eat them and get some health and stamina. Or you can get some raspberries, blueberries and honey and make queen’s jam and get a lot of health and stamina. The more “advanced” the recipe, the better the recovery. So you can just roast lox meat and get a lot of health or you can make a lox meat pie with a bit more effort and get a lot of health and stamina. 

I cook as a hobby and specifically, I will usually pick a culture and explore its cuisine. I haven’t done this in a minute, having finished up with Moroccan a couple of years ago but it occurred to me that I could explore Valheim’s cuisine and see where it takes me.  

I dipped into some research, compared the Valheim food list with some historical evidence and decided to remain in the “inspired by” as opposed to the “historically accurate” areas of possibilities. I put together a menu that included turnip stew, onion soup, bread, pork jerky, queen’s jam and mead. I invited over some friends and we feasted and whispered tales of gore from our time in Valheim. There was much laughter and it was a good night.

So I thought I might share some of the ideas I had for the menu. We can start with the turnip stew which is one of the most basic in the game but kind of a challenge to get. Turnip seeds are actually a bit rare and are normally found in the swamp which is the third biome as far as difficulty. Once you find them, you can grow turnips and even plant a turnip to grow more seeds. Boars roam in the first biome you’ll encounter which is the meadows. The in-game recipe uses 3 turnips and 1 boar meat that yields a stew that will give you 18 hit points and 55 stamina points for 1500 seconds. 

Pretty basic and a quick search on the internet provided more than a few recipes that were close. I picked one and made some adjustments to bring it closer to the theme.

Here is the source recipe: https://tasteofthesouthmagazine.com/beef-turnip-stew/

I made the recipe with all of the original ingredients first and it is delicious, rich and savory. I highly recommend the original recipe. However, there are some new world ingredients that would not have been available to our Valheim analogs. I dropped the tomato sauce, the yukon potatoes and the paprika. Potatoes and tomatoes have their origins in the Peru-Bolivia area of South America and were not available in Europe until after the rediscovery of the new world in 1492. Paprika is a spice made from dried red peppers that originated in Central Mexico so it’s out as well. I left the rest of the spices due to their proximity to Europe. Were they available to nordic cultures in the early medieval period? Honestly? Maybe. 

Caraway grows in Europe (Wikipedia mentions the Netherlands)  and bay leaves exist around the Mediterranean. Pepper was an active trade item with a rich history that predates the Viking Age and the nordic peoples of the time were famous for trade. So who’s to say that some spices may have been more available than we might think?

The next adjustment was to swap the beef for pork and, in a bit of synchronicity, my local grocery store has a sale on pork loin and it worked pretty well. I sliced the pork into half inch cutlets and they followed the recipe as written. 

So, all together, I dropped the tomato paste, the potatoes, the paprika and swapped the beef for pork loin, sliced. I also added an extra turnip and more mushrooms to account for losing the potatoes.

By the way, turnips are a fascinating discovery. I’ve never really had an opportunity to work with them but they cook to a potato-like consistency and tooth and absorb the flavors from their cooking environment. 

The recipe calls for baking the stew in a dutch oven which is not very close to the game. We have ovens in Valheim but they are for the bread. However, I recommend sticking to the procedure. The long cooking time makes for a sumptuous stew and leaves the pork fall-apart tender. Possibly, too tender. As in, if you stir vigorously the pork will disintegrate. Still very tasty but if you are looking for chunks of pork, stir gently. 

You could hunt down this Kettle Pot and Tripod on Amazon (not an affiliate link, read the reviews), which should look familiar to anyone who plays the game. I would still go for the long cook times, especially over an open fire but the heavy lid should give you close to the same finish. I would also monitor the liquid levels throughout the cooking time and add more broth as needed.    

A loaf of crusty bread and some mead makes this a hearty meal and the perfect centerpiece for a Valheim inspired feast. It played its part well in my experience but it has also found a place in the household rotation of weekend family meals especially in the colder months.